Rangers Football Club, the Scottish team that has spent the last two years in financial disarray, has announced plans to float on London's junior stock exchange in a listing led by investment bank Cenkos.

Rangers is set to raise up to £20m via an initial public offering on the Alternative Investment Market, according to an announcement today on the London Stock Exchange. The proceeds “will be used for strengthening the player squad, improving and developing the club's properties and facilities”.

In January, the club's shares were suspended on Plus Markets, the UK exchange for small and often illiquid stocks, after it failed to file its accounts on schedule. Cairn Financial Advisers was the club's nominated financial adviser on Plus but Rangers said last month that Cenkos would help it list on Aim.

The club is set to float before the end of the year.

UK football clubs listing in the UK have a chequered history. Scottish club Celtic, which listed on Aim in 1995, is currently trading down 282%. In November last year, Millwall decided that trading on a public stock exchange is too expensive and cancelled its Aim listing.

Rangers, Scottish league champions as recently as 2011, are in the midst of the most turbulent period of the club’s 140-year history.

According to most media reports, including the BBC, the club had been pursued by HMRC over unpaid tax bills relating to an Employee Benefit Trust scheme that the club set up to pay the wages of its players between 2001 and 2010. Having labelled the scheme a tax avoidance ruse, HMRC hit the club with a bill for £49m in 2010. The club’s total tax liabilities are over £94m, according to administrators Duff & Phelps, reported the BBC.

In 2011, the club was taken over by Craig Whyte, a businessman who served a seven-year directorship ban from 2000. By early February 2012, with no end to the tax dispute in sight and questions raised over Whyte’s suitability as owner, the club was placed in administration. It emerged shortly after that Whyte had funded his takeover of the club by securing £24.4m from ticket agency Ticketus in return for future season ticket revenues.

Whyte was later banned for life from Scottish football.

In June, current chief executive Charles Green brought the club’s assets for £5.5m as the club entered administration. Fellow Scottish clubs forced the ‘newco’ to begin life in the Scottish third division, where it currently sits third in the table.

Commentating on the IPO, Green said: "From the time we acquired the business and assets of Rangers FC, we indicated our intention to list the Company and provide our fans with the opportunity to invest in their club. I am delighted that our plans are coming to fruition."